Full Show Script

• [Friendly]

• EVO The coastline of Costa Brava --- all of coast of the Mediterranean, in fact -- is lousy with castles. Piracy was a big deal (like the Salt Stealing Pirates from Africa we mentioned on last week's show) just a few centuries ago. Fortifications to defend against attacks were built along almost literally every turn of the coastline. Amazingly, many are still visible today, in various states of ruin.

• SHE: A few weeks ago, we took a half-day boat tour out of Blanes, Spain with a company called Charter Lloret. It was just us and six other TBEX attendees, as well as the captain and his assistant, on a leisurely boat tour up the Costa Brava shoreline. As we boated along the beach of LLoret de Mar, Evo asked about the story behind the oddly well maintained, almost brand new looking castle right on the edge of a cliff.

• [pre made]

• SHE How disappointing. A "fake" castle, decades, not centuries old, built just to give tourists something to take photos of.

• EVO: But the other guests on the boat hadn't even noticed the fake castle, let alone Marcos' explanation. My turn...

• [castle story]

• SHE: Taking a boat tour of the coastline was a great way to see more of Costa Brava. Great views, a great guide, and great folks to chat with, and this surprise: 

• [20 minutes on a boat]

• SHE: Drinks? Snacks? This was shaping up to be a most excellent cruse. 

• EVO: Unlike the poor souls we saw on that other tour boat. Clearly, they didn't have Captain Marcos at the helm, or even seem to like the people they were traveling with, as Nate from Winter Wonderlust pointed out.

• [not as much fun on a boat] 

• EVO: 20 minutes is apparently a relative term in the Mediterranean. And I thought that was just an English thing.

• [two minutes five minutes ago]

• SHE: Attending TBEX gave us lots of exposure to Catalonian, or Catalunyan, culture. During the awesome opening event on the grounds of the Hotel Santa Marta just to the...